Frank Couch/Birmingham NewsJason Powell cradles a handful of freshly picked blackberries and blueberries. "My mom has a cobbler where she puts both fruits in, and it's really spectacular," Powell says.

JEMISON -- Jason Powell strolls among the rows of blackberries, eyeing every trellis for the perfect, plump berry.

When he finds just the one he's looking for -- black as midnight and with drupelets that look as if they're about to burst -- he gives it the slightest twist and its rolls off into his hand.

Then he pops it into his mouth for that sweet reward.

"The sun comes out, and it is magical the way they plump up," Powell says. "A little bit of moisture like we had this morning, and it just plumps them right up. Then the sun does its job.

"These drupelets will be completely swollen, and that's when the sugar content is at its very, very best."

If there is anyone who truly loves his work, it is Jason Powell.

Along with his wife, Shelley, Powell runs Petals From the Past, a fruit farm and plant nursery that the Powells opened in Jemison in 1994.

And on summer days during peak berry-picking season, Powell gets to enjoy the fruits of his labor from sun-up to sundown.

"For fresh eating, that's how we consume the most blackberries and blueberries -- we're just popping them in our mouths as we're picking," he says. "And every morning for breakfast, we are having a fourth of a cup of blueberries in milk."

This Saturday, the Powells will celebrate the best of both worlds -- blackberries and blueberries -- at Petals From the Past's annual Black and Blue Berry Festival, a family-friendly day of berry picking and tasting that also includes pony rides, face-painting and a petting zoo.

"We see lots of little ones," Powell says. "And, you know, for some of them, I think it may be the first time to realize that blackberries grow on a plant and blueberries grow on a bush and they don't just come in a small plastic container in the grocery store."

This is the eighth year for the Black and Blue Berry Festival, and the Powells choose to hold it in mid-June every year because, as Powell puts it, that's "smack-dab in the middle" of blackberry season and right at the beginning of the blueberry harvest.

For blackberries, the season typically runs from late May to early July, and for blueberries, it's usually early June until mid-August.

Petals From the Past -- which also specializes in antique roses, heirloom shrubs and hard-to-find perennial flowers and herbs -- is open year-round, but to ensure that the blackberry and blueberry fields are at their fullest for Saturday's festival, they are closed to pickers today through Friday.

On Saturday, ripe-for-the-picking berries will be available for $5 a pint, with a limit of 10 pints per family. Those who don't want to pick their own may buy them already picked at the same price.

Powell encourages novice pickers to sample the berries as they go along.

"We always tell them, 'We are not going to look at the color of your tongue or we're not going to weigh you before you go to the field or weigh you afterward,'" he says. "You've got to sample it."

One of the highlights of the festival every year, Powell says, is the berry tasting menu. For $5 a person, guests get to sample blackberry and blueberry recipes prepared by Southern Sweets of Montevallo.

This year's menu includes lemon-and-blueberry mousse cake; blackberry brownies; blackberry-and-jalapeno compote served with biscuits; triple berry cobbler made with blackberries, blueberries and raspberries; and chicken breast stuffed with apples, bacon, cranberries and blueberries.

Such variety is the beauty of cooking with blackberries and blueberries, the joyously named Rachel Rachels of Southern Sweets says.

"They are real flexible, because you can add them to anything you are cooking," Rachels says. "If something calls for raspberries and you don't have raspberries, you can put in blueberries or blackberries. They're real user-friendly."

Plus, a steady diet of blackberries and blueberries has an unproven fringe benefit, Powell adds.

"My favorite study, which they do not have any scientific backing for, indicates one of the side benefits is they suspect is that they are a brain food," he says.

"Now how good would that be? I'm thinking I could eat a gallon of these things a day and remember some of the things I've forgotten."

A family tradition

For Powell, playing in the dirt runs in the family.

While he was growing up in Auburn, his father, Arlie Powell, was professor of horticulture and associate dean for extension within the College of Agriculture at Auburn University.

"Part of his job was to travel all over the state," the younger Powell recalls. "So I grew up traveling with him in the summer and visiting all of these wonderful farms and gaining, among other things, a great appreciation for what fresh fruit is supposed to taste like when it's harvested right from the plant."

Jason Powell later earned a degree in horticulture from Auburn and then got his master's in horticulture from Texas A&M.

"I got my undergraduate degree from Auburn and then I couldn't make up my mind what I wanted to be when I grew up," he says. "So my professors said the easy solution to that is that you keep taking classes until you figure it out, so I went to Texas A&M."

Once he did figure it out, Powell and his wife opened Petals From the Past 15 years ago, and after his father retired from Auburn about seven years ago, he and his wife, Gwen, moved to Chilton County to help their son and daughter-in-law run the business.

Although the younger Powell gets nostalgic when he recalls eating his mother's blackberry cobbler, he has not-so-fond memories of picking them as a kid.

"When I grew up picking blackberries, I always came back with three things," he says. "I was scratched like I had been in a cat fight, and I was covered with chiggers. And then I was always convinced at some point that I was going to be bitten by a snake."

At Petals From the Past, Powell has eliminated all those worries.

The trellis system not only makes the blackberries easier to pick without all of the scratches but also cuts down on chiggers.

"There is air circulation between the rows so you don't have red bugs," he says. "You've eliminated their habitat immediately because they like it to be nice and tight and thick.

"Also, we've kept mulch along the base of the plants so you don't have a lot of undergrowth. That way, if there were ever a snake out there, you'd see him and he'd see you."

The only nuisance Powell has to deal with are the mockingbirds, which feast on the berries until they've had their fill and then spend the rest of their time scaring off the other wildlife.

Powell has taken a live-and-let-live attitude toward the mockingbirds.

"We just grow a lot and figure we are sharing with the birds," he says. "It's like an unwritten contract I've got with the mockingbird family.

"Each year, they nest right in one of the blueberry plants, so we just kind of rope it off and say this bush is occupied."